


Hell Hath No Nick Fury

by mcshrug



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Hashtag Coulson Lives, M/M, warning for descriptions of injuries, warning for me clearly picking favorites (it's clint), warning for self-harm
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-07
Updated: 2015-03-07
Packaged: 2018-03-16 16:52:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,803
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3495809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mcshrug/pseuds/mcshrug
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“They call that guy Hawkeye,” says Tony. “You wanna know why that is?”</p><p>“Caw caw,” calls Clint helpfully.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hell Hath No Nick Fury

**Author's Note:**

> warnings.
> 
> a) PLEASE READ THIS ONE!! this story contains description of self harm (via hitting) also vague-ish depictions of injuries and operations. the behavior exhibited by The Character Who Harms Himself is not healthy.
> 
> b) this story is 93% dialogue. i like to think of dialogue-heavy stories as that new aerated yogurt with all the bubbles in it. right? it's really fluffy. goes nice and easy down the throat.
> 
> c) fondant cake is gross and i do not personally condone it.

            “I have a meeting with Coulson scheduled for today,” says Steve, staring blankly down at his texts.

            “That’s nice,” says Natasha. “I’ll hitch a ride with you over to HQ.”

            Steve looks up. “I- what?”

            “HQ is an abbreviation for headquarters,” Natasha tells him.

            “I was in the army, Natasha, I know what HQ stands for. I meant- Coulson?”

            “Yes?”

            “Isn’t- isn’t he _dead?”_

“No.”

            “What?”

            “He’s not dead.”

            Steve looks down at the text again. “Oh. I- congratulations?”

            “Thanks,” says Natasha. “Let’s leave, or we’ll be late.”

           

            “I can explain,” says Tony.

            Steve blinks, takes a look around. It’s a minimalistic space, all dull metal and polished wood, gray filing cabinet set kitty-corner to the space, empty desk framed by a wall of thick-glassed windows. “I- this is Coulson’s office, right?”

            “Right,” says Tony, from where he’s currently on his knees on the floor, a patch of carpet ripped from the flooring from between his knees in his right hand and a silver knife in his left. “He’s not here right now.”

            There’s a pause. “Okay,” says Steve, eventually. “He was supposed to meet with me.”

            “Something came up,” says Tony, and sets the knife onto the unsoiled carpet beside him so that he can dig into his pocket, coming up with a handful of small silver disks.

            “Did you break in here?” Steve asks.

            Tony looks shifty. “Maybe.”

            “Why are you cutting up Coulson’s carpet?”

            “Why do you ask so many questions? Jesus. And if you could shut the goddamned door already, that would be fantastic, Cap.”

            Steve does, carefully, and steps further into the room with feet gentle on the soft carpet. The room is very nearly devoid of personal touches; Steve can’t even tell if Coulson has set foot in here since his supposed demise on the helicarrier. There’s a photograph on the desk of a dark-haired family sitting in a green lawn, smiling at the camera while a yellow dog pants happily at their feet. Steve has a significant amount of cash in his bank account from seventy years of back pay, but he would bet it all on the guess that it’s the picture that came with the frame.

            “Coulson _is_ alive, right?” says Steve, just to confirm.

            “Mhm,” says Tony absently, tapping one of the silver disks twice. It whirrs softly, folds out spidery silvery legs from its sides, and buries them deep into the exposed flooring with a satisfied click.

            “I am very confused,” says Steve.

            “You usually are,” agrees Tony.

            “Ha,” says Clint.

            Steve and Tony jump, both of their hands immediately shooting up, Steve is an empty grope for his shield and Tony in the fruitless gesture of a repulsor blast. Clint, from where he is sitting on the top of the filing cabinet, raises an eyebrow and looks very pointedly unimpressed.

            “Dammit,” says Tony, lowering his hand and going back to staring at the silver disk, which has started to glow. “You _definitely_ were not there thirty seconds ago.”

            “Interesting hypothesis,” Clint tells him. He is very methodically buttering a bite of toast.

            “Tony,” says Steve, “what is that weird thing doing?”

            “That’s not a very nice way to talk about Clint, Steve,” says Tony.

            “Ha,” says Clint.

            “You know what I meant. The disk thing.”

            “Shh,” says Tony, patting the carpet into place over it. “There. See, it’s gone now.”

            “I understand object permanence, Tony.”

            “Ooh, big words. Did you hear those big words, Clint?”

            “ _Tony.”_

            Tony stands up, brushing off his knees, and moves across the room to slide the family picture out of its frame. “It’s just technology stuff, Cap, it wouldn’t interest you.”

            Steve eyes it distrustfully. “I _know_ how to use technology, you know, you don’t-“

            “I know you do. I track your internet history.”

            Steve pales. Clint says “Ha,” a little louder this time, and takes a bite of his toast.

            “Stop changing the subject,” says Steve, managing to rally. “We need to get out of Agent Coulson’s office.”

            “Eh,” dismisses Tony, “he won’t be back for another twenty minutes at least.”

            Clint’s final “ha” accompanied by a butter knife that embeds itself in the carpet between Tony’s dark-booted toes. “He’s going to find out, you know,” he says, through a mouthful of toast.

            Tony steps daintily over the knife and glowers darkly at the filing cabinet. “The next time you throw a knife at me I’m going to get my AI to kill you in your sleep.”

            Clint doesn’t look overly concerned. “I don’t sleep.”

            “Tony,” says Steve, carefully prying the butter knife out of the carpet, “We need to _leave.”_

            “I’m not done yet.”

            “I know what you’re doing.”

            “No you don’t. Technology, Cap, I’m tellin’ ya-“

            “You’re planting bugs.”

            “You actually _do_ know what I’m doing.” Tony lights up. “Cap, if you know what bugs are, it’s time for me to impress you. These aren’t just any bugs. These are the most advanced bugs ever to be planted. If a regular run-of-the-mill CIA bug was a ladybug then these would be, I dunno. Ferraris.”

            “That’s a flawed metaphor,” says Clint, shifting slightly on his perch.

            Tony moves to the window to slide a bug into the curtain. “They change color _and_ texture to reflect their environment, and more than that, they’re completely undetectable. You can’t see ‘em, you can’t feel ‘em, you can’t scan for ‘em. The only way you’d know they existed is if I shoved them up your ass.”

            “Why would you do that,” says Steve, flatly.

            Tony stares at him for a moment, then shakes his head. “No, I can’t, you make it too easy.”

            “Ten,” says Clint, and they both glance up to stare at him. He meets their gazes one by one, then says, “Nine.”

            “Is he counting down?” Tony asks.

            “Eight.”

            “Why are you sinister-ly counting down? Doesn’t he look sinister, Cap?”

            “Seven.”

            It really does sound ominous. “Clint, what are you doing?”

            Clint says, “Five.”

            “I don’t care,” says Tony decisively. “I’m going to finish this so I can get out of here. SHIELD air conditioning gives me hives.”

            “One,” Clint says, and the door handle jerks in its socket. Steve and Tony freeze.

            The lock tumblers make a clicking sound as they disengage.

            Tony goes white so quickly it’s startling. “Oh _shit-_ “ he shoves the fistful of bugs down the front of his shirt and without another word dives gracelessly behind Coulson’s desk.

            The door clicks open and Phil Coulson steps into the room, manila folder in one hand, cardboard cup of coffee in the other. He looks utterly unsurprised to see Steve standing inside his locked office. “Hello,” he says, with a nod.

            Steve squares his jaw and steps forward, being careful not to glance behind him. “Agent Coulson,” he says, aiming for a winning smile.

            “Rogers,” Coulson agrees, then looks past him to the desk. “Stark.”

            Tony’s disheveled head pops up above the desk. “Damn it,” he says, “I _knew_ we had a spy in our ranks.”

            Steve glances over towards the filing cabinet in the corner. It’s empty.

            Coulson looks unimpressed, as he generally does. “Could I ask what you were planning to do in my office once you decided to bypass my security and show up unannounced, Stark?”

            “Oh, that’s fine, go ahead and blame me,” says Stark, “like _I’m_ the one standing there holding a knife in my hand.”

            Steve drops the butter knife he’d forgotten he was holding, as if that makes the situation any better. “Agent Coulson-“

            A bug falls out of Tony’s slightly bulging shirt and bounces twice on the carpet.

            “I can explain,” says Tony.

            Coulson doesn’t even spare Steve a glance when he reaches behind him to reopen the door. “Captain Rogers,” he says, “I think we may need to reschedule our meeting for today.”

            “Alright, sir,” says Steve. “I’m- I’m glad to see you’re still with us.”

            Coulson allows the faintest of smiles to crease his gray-tinged face. “Thank you, Captain,” he says. “Now if you would like to leave the room before I deal with this, this is your last chance.”

            Steve does not like to think of what he does next as fleeing. He prefers to think of it as a tactical retreat.

            Outside, in the SHIELD lounge, Natasha and Clint are standing by the foosball table. Clint is absent mindedly weighing one of the tiny plastic soccer balls in his hand.

            “How did you get out of there?” asks Steve. “You couldn’t have left through the door.”

            “Steve is confused,” says Clint.

            “He usually is,” agrees Natasha.

            “Ha,” says Clint.

            Steve is glad that the Avengers, as fractured and dysfunctional team they may be, can find a common purpose in giving him a hard time.

            “Well,” he says, cranking out another winning smile. “I’m going home if no one needs me.”

            Clint’s eyebrows inch up his face. “Home, huh,” he says, while Natasha looks thoughtful beside him.

            “Could you- could you not psychoanalyze me, right now?” asks Steve. _Psychoanalyze_ is a word he learned from his SHIELD mandated therapist when he asked if there was a word for what Natasha did when she sometimes leaned over the breakfast table and examined his face for a good forty seconds before telling him something about himself that he hadn’t fully realized yet, for example:

            Last week, over eggs: “You lacked a strong father figure in your childhood and that has resulted in you sometimes overcompensating in your care of others because you are afraid of becoming someone like the unreliable man who abandoned you.”

            And the week before that, over pancakes and cereal: “Your issues with self-loathing manifest in your attempts to go out of your way to please everyone around you while at the same time neglecting aspects of your own basic self-care.”

            And the week before that, over muffins: “You’re not straight.”

            Breakfast in the Avengers tower is oftentimes less of a team bonding experience and more of an unmitigated assault on Steve.

            It doesn’t matter. Steve is tired. Steve is tired, and Steve is confused, and Steve is not needed here and Steve just wants to go back to his apartment in Tony’s tower and sleep for a while so that he doesn’t have to think.

            “If that’s what you’d like, Steve,” says Natasha, although he’s pretty sure she’s just humoring him. Natasha doesn’t really ever stop psychoanalyzing; she just usually doesn’t tell people when she’s doing it. “Take a nap. We’ll call if something happens.”

            He leaves them to contemplate the foosball table and pout prettily at the wall or whatever it is they do in their free time. As he steps out the door, he hears Clint say “Ten on me getting this soccer ball in the eyeball of the next person to walk in,” to which Natasha says, “you’re going to need a handicap for that to be-“ before the door swings shut behind him.

            It’s a ten minute ride back to Tony’s tower. Steve is tired.

 

            Tony finds him half an hour later. He’s lying on his back on the bed on top of the covers, staring blankly at the ceiling, lost somewhere in a pleasantly hazy daydream that evaporates when Tony barges in through the door, already talking so fast that it takes Steve a moment to catch up.

            “-over as soon as I could, because I figured you’d want to know I made it out of there alive. It was at question for a moment there, right? You care, right, Cap? Cap, do you just stare at the ceiling when you’re not on duty?”

            There’s a pause. Steve realizes he’s supposed to answer. He rolls over and sits up, settling his hands into his lap. “Sometimes.”

            “You need a hobby,” Tony decides, which seems like a dangerous idea that Steve should derail immediately, but before Steve can discourage him he’s already moved on. “Anyway. The Coulson thing. _Sorry_ that didn’t work out, also for dragging you in. You’ll be happy to know that I survived that little encounter with not one but _two_ testicles intact but he _did_ confiscate the remaining bugs.”

            “Why were you bugging his office?”

            “Don’t worry, I deactivated them the moment they were in his custody,” says Tony. “God. As if I’d let _SHIELD_ reverse-engineer my best tech.”

            “Tony.”

            “You’re like a dog with a bone, Cap,” says Tony. He looks good today, hair thick and full and eyes bright and suit neatly pressed to his elegant shoulders. Steve sometimes thinks he should probably think a little less about how good Tony looks. “Well, first of all, I don’t trust him. At all.”

            “I thought you knew him.”

            “Oh, I did. Past tense.” Tony taps a finger against Steve’s bedside table. “I’m not sure I do anymore.”

            “You think dying changed him,” says Steve.

            “Well,” says Tony, “I don’t usually trust zombies.” And then he says, “Oh, wow. Was that offensive?”

            Steve bites down a grin. “No, Tony.”

            “I think it was. I’m an offensive person.” Tony claps Steve on the shoulder. His hand is warm through Steve’s thin t-shirt. “Sorry. I’m sure he’s no more into brains than you are. Speaking of cannibalism, I’m starving. Lunch?”

            “That’s not a smooth segue, Tony.”

            “Eh, it’s worked before. So, wanna go out? You and me? Burgers? A delicious American lunch even you can get behind, I’m sure.”

            Steve would really rather sleep than do anything else but Tony looks bright and happy today and Steve is not about to be the one to ruin that. “Alright,” he says, and lets himself be pulled.

 

            “Who wants to bet,” Clint begins.

            “No one,” says Natasha.

            “I’m in,” says Tony.

            Banner sets his fork down and calmly leaves the room.

            Clint is undeterred. “You see this window?”

            It looks down onto the front drive. Tony says, “None of us are blind.”

            “I’m deaf,” says Clint cheerfully.

            “The fuck does that have to do with anything?”

            Clint ignores him. “How much do you wanna bet that I can nail Coulson through his window when he drives out.” He holds up his muffin. “With _this.”_

Tony squints. “Not with a _muffin,_ bullshit. Half a grand.”

            Natasha rolls her eyes. “Clint, at least take a handicap, this is like taking candy from a baby.”

            Clint can’t be shaken. “Fine. No hands.”

            Tony looks delighted. “I double _._ No way.”

            Clint looks across the table. “Cap? You in?”

            Sometimes Steve forgets that he is, in fact, a participant in these conversations, not just an observer watching strangers interact for his entertainment. He starts a little, hides his face in his OJ to mask his surprise. When he emerges, he says, “I’m not betting against you, Clint.”

            Clint pouts. “Why’s that, Cap?”

            “You always win?” says Steve. It seems like a reasonable enough excuse, but Tony is scowling.

            “A muffin? With his _feet?_ That’s over two hundred feet of distance,” says Tony. “Even Hawkeye has his limits.”

            Fifteen minutes later, Tony says, “Damn.”

            Clint shakes the crumbs off his foot and smugly pulls his sock back on. “Hawkeye has limits, _huh?”_

They are extraordinary and beautiful and funny and so talented, the three of them silhouetted by the window. Steve quietly gathers up their plates and brings them to the sink.

           

            Steve punches himself in the face in the shower.

            He’s not sure why. There’s no real reason for it- he’s just showering, as he does, the only sound in the room the buzz of the water hitting the metallic floor, and he’s halfway through lathering his mint green shampoo into his hair when he turns and hits himself in the jaw so hard that his head snaps forward and slams into the wall and everything goes a startling, vivid red for a moment. When he brings his head away, there’s a dent in the tile, wretched cracks spidering away from a hole shaped just like his left temple.

            The water trickling down onto his shoulders is turning pink. Steve thinks, oops.

            The head wound heals in fifteen minutes, the bruise in an hour more. Steve is fine. Steve is fine. Steve is fine.

 

            “Who wants to bet,” Clint begins.

            “Can’t I just eat my breakfast in peace?” says Banner, sounding resigned. He looks tired. Steve doesn’t see him much; he presumably stays down at the Stark labs for most of the day, and only braves communal space for a breakfast that lasts only until he becomes tense, which on one record-breaking occasion took an entire seven minutes.

            “Who wants to bet I can make Steve smile,” finishes Clint, and takes a casual bite of his oatmeal.

            Steve feels his cheeks flame up even as everyone studiously drops their gazes.

            “Clint,” says Natasha, quiet.

            “What?” says Clint. “Is no one going to take me up on it?”

            Tony taps his fingers on the table, rapid-fire. “He hasn’t smiled in a while.”

            “Right,” agrees Clint.

            “How long’s it been, anyway?”

            “Since the attack on New York, at least,” says Clint.

            They’re talking about him like he’s not even there.

            “Hmm,” says Tony. “One grand even I’ll be the one to do it.”

            Steve feels something hot and sour settle in his gut. He sprinkles a little more sugar on his oatmeal and stares blankly out the window, where the sun is shining warm and gentle on his burning cheeks.

 

            "Hey, Cap. Cap-o. Capische."

            "Clint."

            "Are you watching Dance Moms?"

            The TV went to this channel when he turned it down and Steve finds the shrill arguments strangely calming. "I guess."

            "Cool. Fury's calling us into a meeting."

            Steve sits upright, hits Mute on the TV. "What?"

            "I was sent to get you because you aren't answering your phone."

            "I turned it off."

            "I'm aware, Capybara. You should probably  _not_ do that next time. Hell hath no Fury like Fury." 

            Steve says, "What's a capybara? Why did you call me a capybara?" But Clint is already gone. Steve sighs and goes to get his suit. He'll never find out if Abby Lee won the competition, but he supposes all heroes have to make sacrifices.

 

            When Steve gets to the garage, he walks into a standoff. Stark and Coulson are glowering at each other, Stark with his hand on the nose of a sleek black limousine and Coulson with his on a van. Natasha and Banner are standing off to the side. Natasha looks supremely bored and Banner looks like he’s striving for something similar.

            “Gentlemen,” Steve tries, because it looks like someone’s about to get shot.

            Tony turns to look at him, mouth pinched into a scowl beneath his purple-tinted sunglasses. “ _Rogers,”_ he says, “tell Agent here that we are _perfectly_ able of providing our own transportation over to HQ, and if Fury’s going to entrust me with housing his special team he can goddamn trust me to pick a driver, and if we can’t use one of the goddamn quinjets we could at least pick me a nicer car than some goddamn monstrosity built in nineteen-ninety-fuckin’-five that can’t even hit 35 on a good day and- urkkk-“

            Steve is good at predicting when someone’s about to get shot, by now.

            Tony is still sinking slowly to the floor, fish-mouthing as his hands flop limply across the concrete, when Coulson holsters his tranquilizer gun and moves to slide open the back door of the SHIELD van. “Romanov, Banner, if you’d step inside, please,” he says, politely. “We’re a bit short on time.”

            Natasha daintily steps over Tony’s limp body on her way into the van. Banner opts for the long way around.

            Coulson looks over his shoulder as he’s stepping inside. “Captain, if you’d be so kind as to bring Stark along,” he says, and then, without raising his voice, “Hawkeye, out of the rafters.”

            Steve has Tony hefted halfway onto his body when Clint lands in front of him on the balls of his feet, dressed head-to-toe in Hawkeye gear, bow and quiver slung casually over one shoulder. “You need help with that?” he asks, eyeing Stark’s limp body.

            “Nah,” says Steve. He’s a supersoldier.

            “Good, because I wasn’t going to anyway,” confesses Clint. He leans forward, darts in to pluck Tony’s sunglasses off his face, and then disappears inside the van. Steve sighs and hefts Tony along.

            Tony’s breath is warm and moist on the side of his neck as they bounce along in the van. Steve tries not to think about the way his lips brush against Steve’s bare skin when he drags in a particularly rough inhale.

            “Oh,” says Natasha, who’s watching them with one hand tugging on her lower lip. “That’s _adorable.”_

“Quick,” says Clint, “someone grab a pic. Instagram that shit.”

            Tony snorts and then murmurs “Mmm never _never_ fucked it, no mm she told me not to,” all hoarse and wet against Steve’s ear. Steve stares straight ahead and keeps his hands loose on Tony’s back and very pointedly does his best not to think about how hopelessly hot this experience is.

 

            Tony wakes up exactly one minute into the briefing by flailing so hard that he falls out of his chair. From the floor beneath the table, he says, “What the fuck.”

            Fury glowers. “Nice of you to join us, Stark.”

            Stark crawls back into his chair, looking stunned. There’s a little drool on his chin, and his eyes are almost wild when they land on Steve’s face. “Where the fuck,” he says, after a moment, “are my _sunglasses.”_

Steve’s eyes flick to Clint before he can help it. Tony’s eyes follow his gaze and his hand twitches by his side, palm flexing as if he’d automatically moved into the position for a repulsor blast. “Barton,” he says.

            Clint twirls an arrow between his fingers and stares Tony down, eyes dark through the lenses of the glasses.

            “Give those the fuck back,” suggests Tony.

            “Purple’s my color,” says Clint, tapping the arrow against the table.

            Tony looks utterly flummoxed. “I- I don’t- those cost _five thousand dollars-“_

“Stark,” says Fury, “shut the fuck up and don’t make Romanoff tranq you.”

            Natasha examines her nails.

            Tony must be still out of it, because he doesn’t have a snarky comeback for that. He just sits back hard and stares blankly at Fury, looking bewildered.

            His cheeks are flushed warm and alive. Steve looks away.

            Thor’s in Asguard, so it’s just the five of them, which should be fine, because the issue this time is a single genetically-engineered dinosaur.

            “Just one?” asks Clint. He looks a little disappointed. “That hardly seems on our level.”

            A single dinosaur the size of a small skyscraper who is currently on the shore, creating significant tidal waves every time it dips a toe into the ocean.

            “Ah,” says Clint. “That seems a little on our level.”

           

            Steve sometimes wonders what the therapist he never goes to would say about the fact that the only time he ever feels really happy anymore is when he’s fighting with his team.

 

            In the back of the van on the way to debriefing, Tony and Clint are having a whispered fight in the back.

            Steve ignores it, like he ignores most of Tony and Clint’s fights. The mission went well. There were very few snags, the monster is dead, there was minimal loss of life, and they even managed to keep team infighting to a minimum until they got into car. Steve will take it as a victory.

            Bruce, still looking a little green around the corners of his tight-lipped mouth, pulls out his noise-cancelling headphones and slides them over his head with hands that are only shaking a little. Natasha, next to him and across from Steve, is delicately cleaning her fingernails with the tip of a wickedly sharp knife.

            “You did well today, Captain,” she says, eyes fixed on his face. Her expression is carefully blank.

            “Thank you,” Steve says. He hopes he’s not blushing.

            Coulson, who’s standing near the front of the van, his back to the driver, says, “The job well done will be a fairly moot point if Hawkeye and Iron Man kill each other before we get back to base.”

            Steve looks up. Clint is standing on his seat, his full bow assembled and drawn, arrow nocked and ready to fire. Tony, still sitting across from him with the faceplate down, has his palm up and glowing.

            Steve frowns, then looks back at Coulson and Natasha, both of whom look utterly bored with the whole scene. “Should I intervene?”

            Natasha examines her pinky nail. “Let them tussle it out. They’ll come to you when they’re ready.”

            When Steve looks over again, Clint’s bow is down and Tony’s hands are placed demurely in his lap. “If you say so,” he says. Natasha, as long as he’s known her, has never been wrong yet.

            It’s another minute before Tony is clanking his way up to the front of the van. “Yo, boss.”

            “Iron Man,” says Steve.

            “What, we aren’t on a first name basis by now? Whatever. _Cap._ Clint wants to know if he won his bet or not.”

            Steve tries to think back on what bet Clint might be talking about. There are at least five outstanding bets currently in progress that Steve knows of, and that’s just since this morning. “Um, which one in particular are we talking about?”

            Tony doesn’t smile, but his eyes sharpen a little. “The one about making you smile.”

            Steve feels his stomach lurch a little. Natasha calmly flicks her knife closed and open again.

            “See, Clint saw you smile during the fight,” Tony says.

            Steve can feel all their eyes on his face (except for Bruce, who is peaceably humming along to his metallic scream-o music as he stares blankly out the window.) There’s no longer any hope he isn’t blushing. “Um.”

            “They call that guy Hawkeye,” says Tony. “You wanna know why that is?”

            “Caw caw,” calls Clint from the back, helpfully.

            “It’s because he’s got eyes like a goddamn _hawk_ ,” says Tony. He’s a little too close to Steve’s face for Steve’s liking. “So if he says he saw you smile I’ll believe it. The only debate is the _cause_ of the smile.”

            Steve looks desperately to Coulson, who’s looking faintly bemused.

            “Agent _Barton_ over there says that it was because of some trick shot he made,” says Tony, “which, whatever. He makes shots all the time, it’s not that exciting.”

            “It exploded,” points out Clint. “That’s pretty exciting.”

            “Make more bird calls, Agent, we’re not here to hear you actually talk. Now _I’m_ thinking it was maybe because a certain replusor blast that may or may not have saved your life. Leaning towards _may_. Thoughts?”

            Steve looks up. If he pushed himself up from his seat to stand right now his face would come exactly even with Tony’s. “Uh,” he says.

            “Well,” says Coulson, “as entertaining as this has been, we have reached headquarters.”

            Stark curses and takes a step back, and Steve does what he does best, which is _not_ fleeing. It’s goddamn _tactical retreating._

It’s hard to hide from people when you’re hiding in a tower built by Tony Stark and the people you’re hiding from are, respectively, a master spy and infiltration specialist with a working knowledge of the air vents throughout the tower, and Tony Stark.

            “Steve, _please,”_ says Tony.

            Steve says, “Didn’t I lock the door?”

            Tony laughs like he’s made a joke. “Steve,” he says, once he’s done chuckling. “Please. It’s important for the bet. If you could just let me know _what_ exactly was the cause-“

            Steve slowly zips up his pants. “I’m not going to be able to piss right now, am I.”

            “Oh, no, you can,” says Tony. “It _is_ your bathroom. You just have to do it while answering me.”

            “Steve, you know I wouldn’t bother you unless it was important,” says Clint, who is sitting on the edge of the bathtub across from the toilet. Steve could have sworn he wasn’t there three seconds ago. “But this is vital. This is a matter of _pride.”_

Tony claps his hands. “The man speaks the truth. So, what’ll it be, Cap. Arrow or repulsor beam? Who finally cracked the elusive icy exterior?”

            Steve slowly shuts the lid of the toilet. “Honestly?”

            “Honestly.”

            “Honestly,” says Steve, slowly. He’s trying to tamp down the disgust rising in his throat but he can’t quite manage it and the words are bubbling up faster than he can swallow them down. “Honestly, the only time I’ve been happy since I woke up has been when I was fighting, because when I’m killing things I don’t feel like quite as much of a failure. You know? Do you know how that feels?”

            Tony’s mouth slowly goes slack. Clint reaches up and fiddles with one of his hearing aids like he hopes he might be hearing Steve wrong.

            Steve laughs at them. It feels ugly and wrong in his throat. “When I’m- when I’m using my body to kill or to fight I feel like- like I still have a purpose, like they didn’t waste this second chance on me, like I- like I cheated death for a reason. Not for nothing. Not for sitting around and- and knowing I missed every part of my friend’s lives because- because I was some kind of grandiose _idiot_ who-“ Steve forces himself to stop rambling, biting his words off so violently that his teeth clack together. “Anyway.”

            Clint is managing an impressive poker face. Tony is not.

            “That’s why I smiled,” says Steve, “because I was happy. I’m going to- I’m just gonna go-“

            They don’t stop him from leaving the bathroom. They don’t stop him from going to his bedroom and they do not tried the locked door, not for hours and hours.

 

            “Good morning,” says Tony, “I baked you a cake.”

            He looks good _,_ cheeks warm and flushed deeply pink, a smear of icing across his left cheek. There’s flour spotted on his black ACDC t-shirt and he’s wringing his hands absently. At the kitchen table across from the counter where Clint is sitting cross-legged, Natasha and Banner are watching them.

            Steve blinks. He’d come in to grab his morning cup of coffee and then disappear as quickly as possible in the hopes of not facing an interrogation. It seems he will not be so lucky. “You- baked me a cake?”

            “Yes,” says Tony, “that _is_ what I just said.”

            “Clint, too,” says Clint from behind him.

            “Clint, too,” agrees Tony. He looks slightly manic, eyes wide and bright. “We Skyped Pepper for help. She says hi.”

            “Okay,” says Steve, hesitantly.

            “Aren’t you going to say hi back?”

            “Hi? What’s Sky-“

            _“Not_ the time, not the time, Steve, my All-American boy.” Tony gets a hand at the small of his back and propels him forward, around the island where Clint is making eyes at them and to the table, where a lopsided round cake is set up in the middle. “This one’s for you, Star-Spangled man.”

            The cake says, in crooked white icing letters on a blue and red fondant background, WE'RE SORRY FOR BEING ASSHOLES.

            Steve stares at it for a moment.

            Natasha says, “Enough,” and then cuts off a huge slice for herself. “I’ve been waiting for you and I’m hungry now.”

            “Oh,” says Steve, a little hoarse.

            “So?” says Tony. He’s hovering. The hand-wringing has gotten worse. “Do you like it?”

            “Tony, this really wasn’t-“

            “But do you like it?”

            Steve looks at Tony, then leans forward and takes a slice that Natasha is offering him on a plate.

            A few bites in, he says, “It’s great, Tony, Clint,” and Tony’s shoulders finally droop. Bruce smiles into his cake. Clint, still on the counter, says “Okay, cool,” and then stands up, removes a tile from the ceiling, and disappears into the darkness beyond.

            “Clint’s not great at emotions,” says Natasha.

            “Ironic, coming from uu _uuugh,”_ says Tony, crumpling into the table.

            Steve takes another bite of cake and ignores the bump of Natasha’s foot against his knee as she removes it from where it had been planted in Tony’s crotch. “This really _is_ good cake,” he says. “I should thank Pepper. What was Tony talking about doing with her earlier?”

            “Skype is a way to send video messages,” Bruce tells him, over Tony’s groans.

            “Oh,” says Steve, “that’s neat.”

            “ _That’s neat,_ ” mocks Tony, once he’s finished his pained grunts. “I hate when Bruce explains the future to Cap, he’s way too concise. You could make it so _convoluted,_ you’re missing so many opportunities to _confuse_ him-“

            “I thought you were sorry for being an asshole,” says Bruce mildly.

            Tony waves it off. “If I had to make a cake every time I was an asshole I’d never be able to stop baking. I only am sorry in special circumstances.”

            “And Steve is a special circumstance,” says Natasha softly.

            Tony points a fork at her. “You’re only allowed to psychoanalyze _Steve_ over breakfast,” he tells her, and then he takes a slice of cake, mashes it around with his fork for a bit like any of them actually thinks he’s going to eat it, and escapes to his lab, where he’ll presumably immediately down one of his barely edible Dummy-made kale shakes.

            Steve likes Tony.

 

            “Steve, about the whole- _thing_ -“

            “We don’t have to talk about it, Tony.”

            “You don’t have to fight to be worth something, you know.”

            There’s a pause.

            Then Tony’s phone beeps. They’re being called to fight.

            “Well,” says Tony. He looks a little sad. “Ironic, huh?” And so they go to suit up.

 

            The fight goes fine, until it doesn’t.

           

            When Steve comes to, he wishes, vaguely, to die.

            Something is very wrong with his body. He’s in too much pain to catalog exactly what, but his limbs are in the wrong order and he cannot move his legs hands arms fingersnecktoes. Everything is red.

            He blinks sand out of his eyes; opens his mouth to yell for backup and drools teeth instead.

            The sun is warm on his bloody face and bright in his eyes but he’s not sure how to turn his neck so he squints and drools and loses time.

            There is no sound. He’s not sure if that’s because he lost the comm or because he’s deaf, or both.

            Clint is deaf. He is-

            Captain America-

            Steve Rogers Brooklyn New York-

 

            Lying there on his ruined back in the bloody sand, he wonders what a capybara is.

 

            At least he is warm. The last time this happened he was-

 

            -not warm.

 

            “Oh my fucking god.”

           He's never heard Peggy curse like that. If he could smile he thinks he would.

            When he blinks away a sheen of tears Tony’s face is leaning over his, pale between the red and gold of the rim of the Iron Man mask. Steve thinks, distantly, that he’s glad that Tony retracted the faceplate. It’s a nice thing to see before he dies.

            “You’re not going to die, Steve,” says Tony, and his voice is off. Odd. The image ripples a little and Natasha is by his side, and she reaches out a hand and Steve tries to smile, letting his eyes slide closed. In the summer sun, she wavers into Peggy and back again.

 

            “Steve,” says Natasha. “Steve, open your eyes.”

            He does. Natasha's face is blank.

 

            “Steve,” says Natasha, “keep them open.”

            “Steve, this is going to hurt like hell,” she says, “and I can only pray for your sake that you pass out before it’s over.”

            It hurts like something worse than hell. Steve screams himself into unconsciousness.

 

            He wakes up twice more, once in a car, once on an operating table- he’s strapped down, pinned down, they have knives in him, his bones are cracking and splintering underneath blunt pushes of metal on leaking marrow and there are no screams left in his raw throat.

            He's barely aware enough to beg to die.

 

            When Steve wakes up lucid for the first time, he’s alone.

            He's on a white bed in a white room across from a window where sunlight shines timidly through white curtains. The door is shut; the machines at his bedside are beeping quietly. It smells like disinfectant and talcum powder. He's in a hospital room, and he's alive.

            He carefully raises his head off the pillow. He’s a little stiff, but it works. When he looks down the bed at himself, his whole body is there, intact, unblemished. He wiggles his fingers, his toes, rotates his knees, gives himself a thumbs up. Everything is in working order.

            “Wow,” he says, mostly to himself.

 

            “Wow,” says Tony.

            “Hi,” says Steve.

            The four of them are staring at him from where they’re frozen around the room- Natasha elbow-deep in the fridge, Banner peeling a banana at the table, Tony with his fingers in the wiring he’s stripped from the microwave, Clint from where he’s perched on the counter. The only one to break the silence is Thor, who takes two mighty strides forward and envelops him in a hug so tight that for a moment he can imagine his spine twisting again.

            “Captain!” he booms. “I am pleased to see you so nobly recovered!”

            “Thanks,” Steve manages, after he has clumsily wriggled his way out of the hug. It feels strange to be back in Tony’s kitchen; the lights are too bright, the furniture too vivid, their faces too healthy and aware. “It’s good to see you, too.”

            “I came back to Earth immediately upon being informed of your incapacitance,” Thor tells him gravely, and then claps him on the shoulder so hard that Steve is fairly sure, had his bones not been reinforced by the serum’s recent healing, he would have broken at least a collarbone or two. “You appear to be now full of vigor and life.”

            “I wouldn’t go _that_ far,” says Clint, relaxing down into his perch. “You’re actually looking a little peaky, no offense, Cap. Food?”

            “Yes, please,” says Steve, who hasn’t eaten anything but a bowl of SHIELD hospital-issue applesauce since he woke up a couple of hours ago.

            Natasha gracefully extracts herself from the fridge and turns to the stove. “I’ll heat something up,” she says, and Bruce tosses Steve a banana, who catches it neatly.

            Steve looks up from his meticulous peeling job to see Tony still staring at him. “Uh, Tony,” he says, “is the microwave on fire?”

            Tony shakes his head forcibly and glances back at it. “A little,” he says, and then scooches off the counter and leaves the kitchen. A moment later, there’s the sharp echo of a door slam somewhere the next hall over.

            The microwave continues to belch smoke into the room. “Shouldn't he be working on that?”

            Bruce coughs delicately into his coffee. “I believe he’s a bit discomfited at the moment.”

            “Is he okay?”

            Natasha taps her fingers on her lower lip in the way she does when she’s hiding a smile. “He’s not good with distractions.”

            “What are-“

            “Cap,” says Clint, rocking back on his heels, “I’m not sure how to put this tactfully, but your ass is hanging all the _hell_ out.”

            “Oh,” says Steve. He looks down. The blue hospital gown is, admittedly, not designed for supersoldier proportions. “I sort of escaped from the hospital.”

            “Really,” says Clint, “I couldn't tell from the gown and the bracelet and the IV line you forgot to pull out of your arm.”

            Wow, Steve really had missed one. He carefully pulls it out and sets it on the counter. The microwave is beeping somewhat frantically now. “So are you saying I should- should I go put on pants?”

            “I do not see the need,” Thor declares.

            “I concur,” says Natasha.

            “Yeah,” says Clint, “a little breeze is good down there. It helps with the healing process.”

            “Steve,” says Bruce kindly, “go put on pants.”

            Steve does.

Steve wakes up at two thirty in the morning with the sharp awareness that there’s someone else in the room with him.

            His shield’s by the bed, slung up against the nightstand in its black case, but that takes too much time. Steve slowly slides a hand out from under the covers and gets his hand around his half-full glass of water. He weighs it in his palm for a moment, and then in one fluid moment sits up in bed and pitches it as hard as he can at the opposite corner of his room.

            There’s a dull thud and a cry of pain. Steve frowns. “Tony?”

            The dark figure across the room fumbles for a moment, and then the light clicks on. Tony is revealed, rubbing mulishly at his cheek, where a bright red spot is spreading across the bone. He’s in a t-shirt and sweatpants, his hair is a mess, and his eyes are narrow and bloodshot. He reeks of whiskey. He is, to put it nicely, absolutely fucking sloshed.

            They stare at each other for a moment, and then Tony starts to list to the side. Steve slides out of bed and moves to support him, but Tony jerks away, his back hitting the wall with a thud.

            Steve puts his hands up in a careful gesture of surrender. “Hey, hey. It’s me, Steve. Cap. Do you know where you are?”

            Tony irritably pushes his hands down. “Christ, ‘m not _that_ drunk. Shut up. I just-“ he stops, and then leans forward in a drunken lurch to press his right palm tight against Steve’s heart through his thin t-shirt.

            Steve stares at him, but Tony won’t meet his eyes. He’s painfully human like this, sleep-deprived and drunk. There are wrinkles at the corners of his eyes and his lips are chapped and dry at the corners. The bones of his face are visible beneath bruised stretches of taut skin. “Captain,” he says, on an exhale.

            And then, “Captain, you know-“ still a hand against his heart, fingers curled into the warmth of his skin- “you know that you metabolize anesthesia too fast for it to be effective on your body?”

            Steve blinks. He hadn’t seen that coming. “I, uh. I do, I suppose-“

            “But do you _know,”_ insists Tony. His eyes are as dry as two slivers of bone, but he shudders like he’s holding back a sob. “They had to- your bones healed wrong, your spine healed twisted, you would’ve been- you were. So they had to break all the bones again- each and every vertebrae, all of your ribs- they had to break to re-heal and-“ Tony’s other hand comes up to grip at his face. “You were _awake the whole time-“_

There’s a heavy pause. “You wouldn’t stop _screaming,”_ whispers Tony. “You _begged to die_ and I just watched-“

            “Tony,” says Steve. Tony’s shaking, fine tremors running through his hand from where it’s still curled in Steve’s shirt. “Tony, it’s alright.”

            Tony laughs like it’s either that or cry. “What part of that sounds _alright_ to you?”

            “You couldn’t have done anything,” says Steve. “I’m fine, I’m fine now. Look at me. I’m fine.”

            Tony looks at him, rises up on his tiptoes until they're looking eye to eye. Tony's are dilated and bloodshot and his breath on Steve's lips is shaky and sour with booze. "Did you do it on purpose, Steve?"

            Steve is taken aback. "Did I- did I get  _hurt_ on purpose?"

            Tony meets his gaze steadily.

            Steve says, "I didn't." He says, "I swear, Tony. Things are better. Things are really better now."

            They stand there together and listen to his heart beat, steady and sure, pumping blood around a ribcage shiny and new and a spine three days old. They stand there until Tony’s eyes start to droop, and then Steve helps him to the bed and tucks the comforter up to his chin.

            Tony stares up at him, eyes blurry. “’S fucked up,” he says, half asleep.

            Steve chokes back a laugh. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, it’s really fucked up.” And then he presses a dry kiss to Tony’s forehead and goes into the living room to sleep on the couch. When he wakes up in the morning, Tony is gone. The only sign the nighttime visit happened at all is the water glass upended on the floor, a fine crack running jagged down the side.

 

            “Who wants to bet,” says Clint, “that the microwave’s going to explode in ten minutes.”

            The five of them look over towards where the microwave is beeping frantically, stopping for random hiccups where it coughs smoke into the room and then resumes its beeping. Its wires are still dangling out like exposed guts into the room. Tony has apparently not been back to tend to it since he left when Steve was here, so now they’re sitting in the main kitchen watching it slowly work itself into a frenzy.

            “I’ll take that bet,” says Natasha, “but it’s going to be five minutes.”

            “I say fifteen,” says Bruce.

            “You’re such an optimist,” says Clint cheerfully. “Maybe if it blows big enough we’ll draw Tony out from hiding.”

            They haven’t seen him in two days; the last time Steve saw him he’d been tucked into Steve’s bed. It’s been assumed that he’s locked himself into his lab, but JARVIS has not been forthcoming on the issue and it’s very possible that he’s fled the state altogether. Steve has heard a lot about his place in Malibu, where he knows Pepper Potts is currently residing. Perhaps they are lounging on a beach together, drinking fruity drinks and being beautiful in the glow of sunlight and camera flashes.

            Pepper Potts has most likely never begged Tony for death as her bones cracked beneath her skin. Steve cuts into his sandwich more aggressively than is possibly necessary.

            “Steve, Thor,” says Clint, “you in on the bet?”

            Natasha checks her watch. “Three minutes left.”

            “I estimate twenty-three seconds,” says Thor gravely.

            The four of them twitch slightly. “Wow,” says Clint. “That’s, uh. Specific.”

            “Maybe I should clear out of here,” says Bruce, and leaves his plate behind when he slips out of the room.

            Sixteen seconds later, the microwave explodes. Natasha shoves Steve underneath the table; Thor stands there in the blast and laughs as the air cooks the hair blowing back from his face; Clint dives out the window, which is, frankly, absolutely unnecessary. The Amazing Hawkeye has always been a bit of a shameless show-off.

            Tony doesn’t resurface, but JARVIS does produce a fire extinguisher. Kind of him, that.

“This is Virginia Potts.”

            “Hello,” says Steve, “it’s me, uh. Steve Rogers.” No response from the other end of the line. “You know. Captain America?”

            “I know who you are, Steve,” says Pepper. She sounds tired. “Everyone in the entire country knows who you are. How are you?”

            “I’m alright,” says Steve. “I was wondering-“

            “-if I knew where Tony was.”

            “Uh, I suppose,” says Steve, “but I guess the question is more if you know _how_ he is.”

            There’s a pause. “He’s alright, Steve,” says Pepper, “he’ll come to you when he’s ready. Any more questions?”

            Steve says, “Oh,” because he’d forgotten, but, “what’s a capybara?”

            There’s nothing but silence on the other end of the line. Steve asks, “Are you there, Ms. Potts?”

            “I’m here.” Pepper sounds even more tired than before. “A capybara is a large rodent.”

            That helps Steve not at all. “Oh, alright,” he says. “Thanks for your time.”

            Pepper hangs up on him without saying goodbye, which is a slight he’ll forgive her for. She is, after all, a very busy woman, and Tony says she can breathe fire which is a fairly good reason not to antagonize her any more than necessary.

 

            Tony comes home with his hair dyed bleached blonde.

            “Wow,” says Banner. Steve stops mid push-up from where he’s been doing reps on the tile of the kitchen floor. Natasha blinks twice, which is her version of a shocked yell.

            Tony eyes them, then turns to the hall mirror. He fluffs his fingers through his hair, says, “Well, shit,” and then disappears into the hallway. A moment later, they hear Clint screech.

            Clint is still laughing two hours later, when Tony emerges from his floor of the tower, hair back to its customary black and face disgruntled.

            “It’s been a long weekend,” says Tony.

            “You looked like Guy Fieri,” says Clint, looking positively gleeful.

            “It’s been a _really long weekend,”_ Tony insists. “Goddamnit. Let’s forget that ever happened.”

            “No, I don’t think so,” says Natasha thoughtfully.

            "He looked like Guy Fieri," Clint murmurs to Bruce, who says, "I heard you the first time, Clint."

            "You didn't laugh," says Clint.

            Bruce forces a smile.

            Steve attempts to rally. “Well, welcome back, Tony.”

            “No,” says Tony.

            Steve blinks. “What?”

            “I said no,” says Tony.

            “I heard that,” says Steve. “What are you saying no to?”

            “Your welcome,” says Tony.

            Steve is nonplussed. “What about it?”

            “No.”

            “I don’t know what that means.”

            “I’m not accepting your welcome right now.”

            “I’m- this is _your home!”_

“I hate when Mom and Dad fight in front of the kids," says Clint to Natasha.

            “Doesn’t mean I’m welcome,” says Tony. “I am now exiting the room.”

            “I don’t understand you at all,” Steve says to his retreating back.

            Tony waves a hand at him over his shoulder. His fingertips are smudged black with dye. “My Wikipedia page has a very thorough analysis of my psyche,” he says, and then he’s gone.

            Steve frowns at the doorway, then turns to where the three others are watching him. “What am I doing wrong?”

            Natasha pops two knuckles on her left hand, combs back her hair, and then hops off the table. “I’ll take care of this,” she says, and follows Tony out of the room.

            Clint whistles and leans back against the counter. “Damn,” he says, “she’s scary.” Steve’s helplessness must be showing on his face, because he says, “Aw, Cap, don’t look so sad. Want me to do a cool flip out the window to cheer you up?”

            “Hawkeye,” says Banner, “no one wants that but you.”

            “Oh, well,” says Clint, “might as well make _someone_ happy.” He at the very least opens the window this time before diving out instead of shattering it. Steve might be living in the opulent skyscraper of a billionaire, but he’s from the thirties. He does have _some_ concept of blatant economic waste.

 

            Tony comes to him with a black eye.

            “Hello,” says Steve, cautious, setting down the weight slowly so as not to smash his foot beneath a barbell that is frankly excessive (he has to pack on stacks and stacks of reinforced weights before he even starts to feel the strain.) “Are you- are you alright?”

            “What? Oh.” Tony pokes at his eye for a moment. “Natasha.”

            “Ah,” says Steve.

            “Well, it was actually me,” says Tony.

            “You punched yourself in the face?”

            “It’s possible I’m a little out of practice in hand-to-hand combat out of the suit. But, ah. It was Natasha’s fault.”

            “I see.”

            “Yeah,” says Tony. “So. I’ve been being dumb.”

            Steve picks up a sweat towel from the bench next to him and scrubs it over his face. “It’s fine,” he says. “I wanted to know if you were fine for- just to know, I guess. I didn’t mean to make you uncomfortable.”

            Tony gives him an odd look. “How would you have made me uncomfortable?”

            “With the whole-“

            “What, begging for death thing? Oh, that.” Tony waves it off. “I’ve begged for death myself. I have some issues with it. That doesn’t give me permission to take it out on you.”

            “It’s still alright,” says Steve.

            “You and Coulson and I should start a club,” says Tony. “The presumed-dead-but-came-back-not-dead club. We could bitch about flashbacks and temporal dysphoria and share mimosas and stuff.”

            “That sounds nice,” says Steve.

            Tony raises an imaginary toast and then crooks a finger towards him with his other hand. “Come here,” he says.

            Steve goes, sweaty towel between his hands and all, and Tony says, “Let’s hook up sometime.”

            “What?”

            Tony gives him a look, takes an imaginary sip from his imaginary mimosa, and tosses it over his shoulder, where it makes an imaginary crash against the wall. “I know you like to act innocent around the others,” he says, “but your _poor-little-lost-church-boy-from-the-forties_ act can’t fool _me._ I know damn well you know what hooking up means.”

            Steve has to bite back a smile. He drops his towel to the side, says “In my day we called it _making time_.”

            “Well, Captain,” says Tony, “let’s make some goddamned _time,”_ and he moves forward and their first kiss is a crash, a bump, a skid-and-grind. Steve closes workout-slick fingers tight around Tony’s waist and stops thinking.

 

            “Just to be clear,” says Tony. “This was a one-time thing.”

            “Okay,” says Steve.

            “Stop protesting, Steve. I’m sorry. I’m just not ready for a relationship right now.”

            “It’s fine, Tony.”

            “Steve, stop _yelling._ You’re being overemotional.”

            “You’re the only one yelling, Tony.”

            “It’ll be fine, Steve. Don’t you dare cry. Don’t you fucking _dare_ cry. We’ll still be friends. I’m just not ready for any sort of commitment.”

            “I’m definitely not crying.”

            “Fine. I’ll leave. If you _insist.”_

“You can stay, Tony,” says Steve, quietly.

            “I’m leaving.”

            “Okay.”

            “Don’t try and stop me.”

            “Okay.”

            “This isn’t happening again.”

            “Tony.”

            It’s two entire days before they sleep together again.

           

            Clint takes one look at them when they walk into the kitchen, Tony limping slightly and Steve following sheepishly behind, and whistles. “Damn,” he says, “I wonder who won the pool.”

            Steve blinks. “The pool?”

            Tony looks intrigued. “You were _betting_ on us?”

            “Oh, everyone was betting on you,” says Clint. He digs around in his back pocket for a moment, and dumps out an arrowhead, lighter, a small sachet of dried beans, and gold-plated earring onto the table before he comes up with a tiny notebook, which he flips open with a flourish before scanning the page. “We have me, Nat, Thor, Banner-“

            “Banner?”

            “-Maria, Phil-“

            “Coulson?”

            “-Fury-“

            “ _Fury?”_

“-and I got a lot of lower-level agents in on this, and also my dogsitter, and a pizza delivery guy, and some X-men, and Johnny Storm, and Coulson’s mom. Also, I think the vice president? I’m not sure. That was a weird phone call.”

            “The vice president,” says Tony flatly.

            “Yeah,” says Clint. “He’s in a lot of informal bets within the agencies. You know how he is with bets. He’s good at Biden his time.” And then he laughs for a solid three minutes until Tony leaves the room with his hands in the air and Steve goes to the coffeemaker just to have something to do with his hands.

            Clint coughs out a last chuckle and settles down. “So,” he says, “are you and Tony a thing?”

            “No,” says Steve. It comes out a little more despondent than he means it too.

            “Ah,” says Clint. “I see.”

            He probably does. He has pretty good eyesight, as Steve’s been told. Caw caw.

 

            “Congratulations,” says Coulson.

            “That wasn’t even my best time,” says Steve, peeling tape off his right hand where it’s started to unstick. His record for destroying one of Stark Industries’ special, reinforced, industrial grade “Can withstand a tank or Captain America for eleven point six seconds!” punching bags is, as the slogan would suggest, 11.6 seconds. He hadn’t been timing himself this round, but he’s fairly sure it had lasted at least thirty.

            “I was actually referring to the progression of your relationship with Tony Stark,” says Coulson. He’s in his usual neat gray suit with his hair combed neatly back, looking pristine next to Steve in his sweaty tank top and faded khakis. His expression is utterly and completely casual, as usual, damn him.

            “I guess it was too much to hope that Clint would keep that to himself,” he mutters, untaping the other hand.

            Coulson’s left eyebrow twitches up an inch in a calculated gesture. “I didn’t hear it from Agent Barton, actually. My mother called me to let me know. She apparently won the betting pool on when you two would get together.”

            “We’re not together,” says Steve.

            “Hmm,” says Coulson. “Here’s your mission report.”

            “Agent Coulson, can I ask you a question?”

            Coulson pauses for a second, then gives him a bland smile. “Absolutely, Captain.”

            “Did you ever find out why Tony was in your office?”

            The bland smile doesn’t waver. Steve steadfastly continues. “You know, about a month ago? When he, ah. Surprised you.”

            The smile is impenetrable. “Broke in.”

            “That’s one way to describe it,” agrees Steve.

            “That’s the only way to describe it, Captain. And I suppose I did.”

            “Ah,” says Steve. There’s a pause. “You’re not elaborating.”

            “No,” Coulson agrees. “I’m not.”

            There’s another pause.

            “Well,” says Steve, “I should go. Because there’s a mission, and. Such.”

            “Yes,” says Coulson. “It’s been a pleasure, Captain.”

            At the door, Steve asks, “Did you destroy them?”

            Across the room, Coulson's face is lost in shadow, but Steve could swear for a moment that he looks almost sad. “I believe,” he says, “that they are far less than I deserve.”

            Steve supposes that is a no.

            Out in the hallway, Clint falls into step alongside him. “Heyo, Cap.”

            “I don’t want to bet,” says Steve.

            “Steve, you’re a bit of a wet blanket, did you know that?”

            “Clint, you always win.”

            “I’m not directly involved with this one,” says Clint. “Hear me out.”

            “If I say no, you’ll stalk me until I have to give in.”

            “Aw, Cap, you know me so well!” Clint gives him a friendly pat on the bicep. “I bet it’ll be two weeks tops before Tony admits to his feelings.”

            Steve almost trips on the carpet. “What?”

            “Did you just almost trip?”

            “Did you say _feelings?”_

“Oh my god, you did. The US Army put millions into designing your body and you almost _tripped.”_

_“Clint.”_

“Yes. Two weeks tops.”

            Steve says, “You’re wrong.”

            “Then bet against me,” says Clint. “Then you get a relationship and I get money. It’s a win-win situation.”

            Steve sighs, then sticks out his hand. “Aw,” he says. “What the hell.”

            Clint gently spits into his palm before vigorously shaking. “What the hell indeed.”

           

            Ten days later, Tony says, “Okay. I have something to tell you.”

            “Oh, dammit,” says Steve, putting down his wineglass.

            Tony looks startled. “What? I haven’t even said anything yet.”

            “I think I’m about to owe Clint a couple hundred dollars,” says Steve.

            “Why are you-“

            “Nothing. It’s nothing, Tony.” Steve takes a deep breath and leans backwards. “Please continue.”

            “Well,” says Tony. “Here’s the thing.”

 

            Clint uses the money to buy a new microwave.

**Author's Note:**

> in all seriousness i really do hope you enjoyed this. if you want to talk to me hit up the comment section, please! (imagine me giving a forced laugh after that sentence that is straining to sound casual but cracks in my clear desperation.) if you liked it, feel free to say "i liked it", in which case i will say i love you, and you will say i like you a lot but i'm not sure i'm ready for this step in our relationship yet and we will part amicably. if you did not like it, feel free to say "i didn't like it, it was plot-less and yet somehow still had plot-holes and it was the fanfiction equivalent of an hour-long foot cramp", in which case i will say i love you, and you will not say anything because you have already left in disgust but it does not matter. i love you anyway.
> 
> thanks for reading bud.


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